


Melted Glass.

by Lanna Michaels (lannamichaels)



Category: Austra Family - Bergstrom
Genre: Community: contrelamontre, M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-05-11
Updated: 2003-05-11
Packaged: 2017-10-02 18:54:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannamichaels/pseuds/Lanna%20Michaels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the night before Helen's showing, Gregory tempts Laurie's self-control. (Blood Rites.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Melted Glass.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the contrelamontre three senses challenge. Senses attempted: touch, smell, taste. 90 minutes allowed. (May, 2003)

_"I didn't think you'd be here today, Gregory."  
Hunter laughed. "I notice Laurie isn't here yet. After last night, I'm not surprised. As   
for me, the boss rang me out of bed at ten. I wasn't awake enough to figure out if he   
phoned to chew me out for fraternizing with the enemy or to congratulate me on how well   
I do it."_  
-Blood Rites, page 64

* * *

Laurie almost smiled at Gregory's bumbling attempts at undoing his cuffs links. He could hear Gregory's blood rushing through his veins to keep time with the cursing in his mind. His uncle had advised him to cherish the time he spent with mortals older than he was for, as he grew older, they would be scarce and then nonexistent. Laurie wasn't sure if Gregory counted as older than him for there was only a year's difference between the two of them, but Laurie supposed it would have to do.

Thankful for the almost complete darkness of the room, Laurie allowed his pupils to go back to their normal size and straightened out of his human stance. There was no need for pretence here, not with this man.

"Let me help you, Gregory." Laurie held out a long arm and brushed his fingers against Gregory's collar. Gregory swallowed convulsingly and Laurie felt his Adam's apple bob with the effort.

"Damn your magnetism," Gregory's voice was harsh like a nail on newly formed glass but to Laurie, it was as musical as his own. Laurie sometimes felt like he could compose symphonies around the gruff and rough tones of his friend's voice. "How much did you have to drink tonight, anyway?"

"You forget who you are with, Gregory."

Gregory laughed shortly. "Yeah. I probably do. This our way of mourning, huh?"

"Yes. This is our way." Laurie felt a flash of pain as his father's face hovered before his eyes. He, like all his kind, had felt Charles' death and even the joy of Helen could not dull the pain. Gregory had shared Charles' bed, Laurie never had the chance. Perhaps this was his way of growing closer to his father. He knew that was what Ann would say. That, and a way to forget about Kathleen. As if he ever could.

But for now, he had a different lover to place in his arms and comfort. The rough cotton of Gregory's uniform scraped against Laurie's palms as he abandoned all pretence of subtlety and ripped them from Gregory's muscled arms. Gregory had lived in this uniform too long; it had begun to soften from constant wear and the folds and creases were more apparent than they should be. The FBI preferred more perfection than that. For all Laurie knew, Gregory was up for review.

"The offer is still open," he murmured in Gregory's ear, inside his head, as he began to kiss his way down Gregory's linened chest.

"Give me - oh! Time to think about it."

"I have all the time in the world."

Gregory would have chuckled were it not for Laurie's attentions on his nipples. "And I don't."

"I did not say that."

"Unless I'm like Helen, you damned immortal..." Too late Gregory realized his mistake. Laurie was back against the far wall with all the speed of his people in panic. His arms were in front of him, claws out to protect the face, heart. Gregory thought he heard a low keening from the vampire, but would swear later that he didn't. He sometimes forgot just how young Laurie was in relation to his family. "Laurie, I-"

'Don't speak.'

Gregory knew Laurie didn't have the power to freeze him but he was frozen nonetheless, fascinated by the way the lamplight danced on Laurie's protruding muscles, by the sheer animal of the man he thought he knew. It had not been smart of him to remind Laurie of his past like that. Gregory snorted at the thought. Were Laurie human he would be in for centuries of psychoanalysis. But of course the family didn't believe in those things. Vengeance cleanses, Steffen would say before dismissing it all as something Laurie would grow out of. For immortals, they could be extremely childish at times.

As Gregory watched, Laurie's claws retreated, became fingers once more. His hands relaxed and the bones became less noticeable. Gregory damned himself for his mistake. The point was to make Laurie _lose_ control, to find comfort in Charles' son, not to make instincts flare up into walls.

'I can smell your heart racing, Gregory Hunter.'

It was Charles' voice! Gregory stumbled backwards, sought the wall, tried to find the scraps of linen that had been his uniform shirt so he could cover himself. An Austra in anger was not something he wanted to face without coverings, no matter what good it wouldn't do him.

'Do you remember Kurt, Gregory?'

"Yes," harsh whisper almost loud in the death-silence of the room. There was still danger here if Laurie didn't trust his voice.

'He nursed me back to health. Frn'cs might say otherwise, but it was really Kurt who sped me along. And do you know what I did when I heard of his death?'

"N-no."

'I raced out onto the plain and hills of the countryside and felt the night surround me and keep me safe the way his arms did, once. The beat of that night is exactly like the beat of your heard right now. I could hear it thump until death took you. Gregory. Gregory Hunter. You gave my father your name.'

"Yes."

'Then we are kin, truly, Gregory Hunter. But you are not the hunter here.'

Gregory thought he could hear his heart the way Laurie did, a beat so strong and loud it was like a tamarisk in the desert. There was no way to avoid noticing it.

'And I can smell your sweat like Tarda water, salty and nourishing when I cannot have...blood. Refreshing in ways few things are. It permeates this room, this house. What kind of law enforcement agent brings the enemy into his home, Gregory Hunter?'

"One who trusts you."

"Then you are a fool, for I can snap your neck like that." Laurie was suddenly in front of Gregory, hands encircling his wrists, pinning them above his head and nuzzling his neck. His front teeth nipped at the strongest pulse point. "My father liked to do this. He loved to make his humans run the gamut of their emotions, made them play their future against their past. But I am not that cruel. But grandfather as well, but, of course, you would know all about that."

Gregory licked his lips and, knowing it was the only way to survive the night, relaxed in Laurie's iron grip. "Yeah."

"And you fucked my grandmother." Laurie's voice was amused, but it only served to bring Gregory back into the tense state he had known when death was less than a moment away and could not miss.

"It was a dream, Laurie. A vision."

"Fool," and Gregory wasn't sure if the tone was harsh or indulgent and the word reverberated inside his soul. "All visions have a slice of reality in them, else they would not be true. Francis understands this, and so he fed you lies laced with truth. Which is the more poisonous, Gregory? Truth or lies?"

That was easy. He had played this game with an Austra before. "Truth," he answered without hesitation. "Because no one wants to know it."

"Exactly. You can kill a man faster by telling him the truth than by telling him lies. Give me your neck, Gregory Hunter."

Not knowing what else to do, Gregory surrendered to his friend. Lawrence's forehead pushed his chin up and to the side as a rough tongue licked quickly against the pulse point.

'You could die this night. Are you scared?'

"Yes."

'Good. You should be.'

And suddenly Gregory understood. Laurie needed to feel like he was in control, like he was in charge of something. Too much had changed for him too fast. First Kathleen, then having to fake his own death and lose all of his non-Family friends, and then his father had suicided at the hands of his uncle.

'_Nas szekornas_, Gregory. You of all humans should understand that, save, perhaps, Paul. We survive. And we kill who we must _to_ survive. That is who we are.'

"Stop stalling, Laurie. Are you going to kill me or not?"

Gregory felt Laurie smile against his neck. 'You, Gregory, are not in control right now. I am. And I will draw every drop of blood from you should I feel the mood come upon me. I shall leave a dried husk for your Bureau to discover and ponder. I will become my father, until my uncle is forced to hunt me down and dispatch me.'

"Laurie-"

'And I will taste your blood on my lips, in my throat. We will be together always, Gregory. You and I, together, always. Your blood with be spicy with your terror, for I will make you feel terror before the end. No hot pepper could satisfy me like your fear, and your loathing, and the desire you hold for my father. You will be inside me, always.'

Laurie's teeth grazed over the pulse and Gregory shivered, knew that was what Laurie expected him to do, cursed himself for his weakness. The fact that nobody could withstand this family or deny them didn't matter.

'I will lick the drying sweat from your cooling body. You will die with me inside you in all ways, in every way. My teeth with snap your neck as my hands make you enjoy it. Your last night alive, Gregory. My father wanted to find death in your arms, but you denied him. Instead, you will die in mine and vengeance will be all the sweeter.'

WHAT? "Laurie!"

Laurie's cold laughter swept through Gregory's brain and his legs gave out. He fell to the floor on his knees and only kept his head from his regurgitation by virtue of some strength he hadn't know he possessed. Laurie's arms encircled him again, holding him tight, and Gregory Saw.

"Fuck. You," he said weakly, later. Laurie's hand played over his back, fingering the new wounds his claws had made.

"You wanted me to lose control," Laurie said, then sobered. "Never tempt the beast, Gregory. You will not like what you find. I tell you this as a friend: you could have died tonight and I would not have cared. I would have mourned you later, but at the moment of your death I would have felt only triumph." 'For the sake of our friendship, Gregory, don't attempt things you don't understand.'

"Very well," he allowed. "But-"

"No 'buts', Gregory. I won't stand to lose you. Now sleep. My uncle will be expecting you tomorrow night. Perhaps then you can give him your decision."


End file.
